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Wake County

November 18, 2010

Are you often on Twitter talking about #SYTYCD? How about #DWS? If you know that those hashtags stand for 'So You Think You Can Dance' and 'Dancing with the Stars', then this giveaway is for you.

And, even if you don't watch those shows, seeing a LIVE performance right here in Raleigh is sure to spark your interest. Who knows-- maybe next week it will be you who's tweeting all about ballroom dancing.

Burn the Floor, a ballroom dancing spectacular, is coming to Raleigh Memorial Auditorium from November 30 to December 5th. This is your chance to see the Cha-Cha, the Tango, and the Jive performed by professionals who have spent their lives training to be the best.

This is so not your wedding, where the Chicken Dance got the most enthusiastic response. It's also not your college fraternity formal where a few couples swayed back and forth until the kegs arrived. This is REAL dancing -- ballroom dancing.

Lucky for you, Triangle Mamas is giving away TWO pairs of tickets (that means TWO winners) to the November 30th show. All you have to do to enter is share one dancing memory. It can be embarassing, sweet, or simple.

Mine? Well, there was that college fraternity formal where my partner and I were attempting this dance but instead ended up kicking the chandelier loose. Yep, and that was before the kegs arrived.

So what's your dancing memory?

Additional entries (one entry per bullet item):

Tweet about the contest, being sure to include @trianglemamas in your tweet. (Come back here and leave us a comment with a link to your tweet.)

Subscribe to Triangle Mamas via RSS through whatever reader you prefer. (Leave us a comment telling us you've subscribed.)

That's it. Contest is open until midnight Friday, November 26th. Winners (because there will be TWO) will be informed via email (so don't forget to provide us with it) and they'll have 24 hours to get back to us.

Good luck!

Hey, even if you don't win, you can still go. Here's where you can purchase tickets (with a reduced price for the 30th and 1st shows). It's going to be an amazing show!

The fine print -- Triangle Mamas was provided with two tickets to see the show for ourselves as well as the two pairs for the giveaway. We rarely do giveaways, but we thought this was a great LOCAL experience allowing us to say thank you to our readers. This contest is obviously open only to those who can be in attendance November 30th in Raleigh.

November 03, 2010

When Pippi and I walked into our polling place yesterday, I had to laugh. And not because Pippi was wearing plastic princess heels (which she was) or because all the little old ladies in the room were so sweet to her and her weather-inappropriate footwear (which they were).

I chuckled because of the particular neighbor I recognized sitting at the table working through her ballot. She's a great friend and I love her -- and she's a Republican.

I know, I know -- even liberal ladies like myself have a few conservative friends in the closet. In truth, she and I probably agree on a number of issues, but we tend to live on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Still, I was happy to see her at the polls. Although I can't really talk politics with this friend because she gets me all worked up and preachy, I still respect her right to vote for the candidates she believes in, even though our ballots probably cancelled each other out in most races.

The reason? Because she's paying attention. She was sitting at the table with her ballot and the newspaper's voter guide, reading through the candidates' information to make her selections. She's not voting straight-ticket out of blind allegiance or (worse) simply not voting but complaining about the way things are -- she's listening to the facts, weighing the debates and making informed choices.

Sure, I wish I could bring her over to my side on more issues -- particularly given the way some of the races turned out. And yes, I'll probably dodge any political debates with her in the near future.

But I'm still glad she was there to vote. And I trust that all those women who fought so hard for the two of us to have the right to disagree on a ballot would be proud.

September 29, 2010

When I first moved to Raleigh a couple years ago, I learned pretty quickly how many great city parks there were in town.

That’s why when a new park opened near my house this summer, I had to check it out. It’s quickly become our go-to park. It has a GREAT playground, some actual shade structures and some nice walking and biking trails.

The only problem? The name...

Landfill District Park

Ok, I’ve been in marketing for over 10 years. I’ve named golf clubs, checking accounts and smaller things like newsletters. So I’m having a hard time figuring out why on Earth the park namers (marketers or not) decided that using the word “landfill” in the name of a park where kids play was smart. I mean, it’s LITERAL I guess but marketing isn’t about being literal.

Truthfully the name isn’t the only thing that might scare people away. When you drive in, you’re greeted with a chain link fence and these...

Yes, tires. Then you actually drive AROUND THE LANDFILL. Maybe it should be obvious from the name that there was a landfill at the park. But I naively thought that maybe it USED to be a landfill or something. I didn’t expect to drive around a huge mound covered in grass to get to the park.

Before you click away from this page and say “Gee, Mel, way to sell me on this new park!”... let me show you these:

A new modern (and CLEAN) bathroom, complete with shade structure and benches.

A “little kid” play structure and a couple of baby swings.

And a cool rock climbing thing, a rope tower and a play structure for the bigger kids.

Now, isn’t that better? There’s also a few walking and biking trails.

The kids don't seem to mind the name. Big Roo would have only flinched if the name had Doody or Toot in it (ah, boys).

If you can get past the name (and the fact that it’s behind the landfill), then this is your park. In fact, the dreaded name must not be scaring away all that many people. It seems to be relatively busy anytime I’ve been there.

I’ll go there. A lot, in fact. Just if someone ever asks me what park I like to take my kids to, I’ll have to always follow the name Landfill District Park with a rambling explanation of how, no really, it’s a great park!

September 09, 2010

This past Sunday, we planned a family outing to see a minor league baseball game -- sounds like the perfect summer evening, right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong at a Mudcats game?

Well, where do I start?

Maybe with the rain, that ruined the first game we tried to see three weeks ago. After driving through a few light showers on our way out to Five County Stadium (Groupon in hand, of course), we discovered that the afternoon game was cancelled.

But as annoying as that trip was, it was only the beginning of our Mudcats mishaps. Here's a snapshot of all the things that went wrong when we tried again this past Sunday night:

There was the parking attendant who tried to keep our change for the parking pass.

Then we got the second parking attendant who told us we'd parked badly (even though we'd done just fine).

And in case that wasn't enough, we met the third parking attendant (sent to track us down by the second parking attendant) who took my husband back to the car and made him move it back 18 inches.

Once inside, the people sitting in our reserved seats furnished tickets with the exact same seat numbers on them, although he cleverly held his finger over the date on the tickets. Then my sweet husband went down to the box office, asked for four new tickets and declined to have the other people thrown out -- sadly the seats weren't as good and it took us a walk around the entire park to find them.

They only sell hot dogs at certain concession areas, not all. Which seems ridiculous, since I go to baseball games specifically for hot dogs (not pizza or chicken sandwiches). After waiting in a very long line (made even longer because they didn't seem prepared to actually serve any hot dogs at the end of the 2nd inning) and handing over every single dollar in our pockets (because they only took cash and over-charged for every item), the hot dogs tasted more microwave than grill. Average at best and very disappointing.

Did I mention that the rather active smoking area was parked beside the food line we were standing in?

After walking around the entire park, arms filled with food, drinks and children, we finally arrived at our new seats. Which were filled. Again. Thankfully there was an usher there this time to shoo the offenders back into their own seats. Which they were quite annoyed about.

As we filed into our row near 3rd base, exhausted by the effort, we looked down to see the floor littered with peanuts and peanut shells crunching under the feet of our peanut-allergic son.

At this point, I looked at my husband with a desperate attempt at a smile and said, "I'm telling you now. If I get hit with a foul ball, it's over. We will be on national television, and I better get paid well for my 15 minutes of fame."

Thankfully, we left without further incident at the 7th inning stretch and made it safely home in time to tuck the kids in bed and fall out on the couch.

In defense of the Mudcats operation, everyone on staff inside the park was very courteous and helpful. But sadly it wasn't enough to make me want to go back any time soon. Guess it's just as well that the season is over -- gives me time to recover before spring training.

Cross-posted from My Convertible Life, where Cyndi writes about surviving all of life's craziness with the top down and two car seats in the back. For a more concise version of Cyndi, follow her on Twitter @convertiblelife.

August 11, 2010

Last week, the boys and I headed to North Hills to get our stroller fixed and buy me some new sunglasses so I could be guaranteed to find my old ones (which I did the very next day). It was lunch time, so we headed over to Chik-fil-a, but stopped by the commons to play for a minute first.

There is always something going on there in the mornings for kiddos. That day, they had tents set up for shade and play mats out for tumbling. Christopher took his shoes off and started to play.

Another mom was standing near me. She had twin girls that looked to be about two. Maybe a little younger. The girls were busy busy, getting water in cups from the cooler that Starbucks provided and dumping it out onto the mats. Every time the mom would wrangle one of the girls and get her to stop, the other one had started doing it. She was trying her best, but they were playing her.

I had my hands full with my two boys, but tried to give her an understanding smile as she ran circles trying to corral the twins. A third mom sat on the ground, watching her phone mostly. She looked at the twins' mother and said, "Can you clean that up please? Someone is going to slip."

She had a point. Water on the mats was kind of dangerous, but rather than just telling her, couldn't she have helped her?

I blew it off because it didn't seem to bother the twins' mom. She went into Starbucks (having to leave the twins to get more water while she wasn't watching) and got some napkins to pacify the bossy mom.

Meanwhile, an older boy had started chasing Christopher. Even though they were the same height, it was obvious that the boy was a good two years older than Christopher. As soon as he would catch up to Christopher, he would spit on him.

Mama wasn't happy.

I watched for a second to see what my little boy would do. He turned to the older boy and said, "Please stop."

Just like that. Please stop, politely. Of course, when the older boy didn't stop and just pursued him more aggressively, the polite voice that Christopher had turned into screaming pretty quickly.

I headed over to get him away from the older boy and finally figured out which one was his mom. She had turned to see who was screaming at her son.

Bossy mom. That's right. Little Miss Clean-up-that-mess was too busy bossing around other moms to notice that her son was bullying a two year old.

Nice.

My passive aggressive kicked in as we stood next to her to put Christopher's shoes back on. I praised him loud enough for her to hear. I praised him for asking the boy nicely to "please stop" and told him that sometimes kids didn't listen or play nicely. Then I told him he could always come to me for help if that happened again.

I doubt she took any notice of any of that though, because she most likely was already back to patrolling the other, less perfect than herself, mothers.

Crossposted from Don't Take the Repeats where you can find Marty pontificating about life with a high schooler and two preschoolers. You can find her in less words on Twitter or just go ahead and friend her on Facebook.

June 06, 2010

Tucked away in the back of the shopping center parking lot of Seaboard Station, there is a little piece of heaven that shines on Downtown Raleigh every Friday night from 6-9pm. It's called Music on the Porch and it is one of Raleigh's best kept secrets. There you will find families of all ages parked in their lawn chairs, eating Chinese food or drinking wine or one of 2 beers on draft, and listening to some of Raleigh's finest musicians play as the sun sets. There is an area marked off for older kids to ride scooters and center stage is reserved for big and little kids alike to dance their hearts out! Regulars enjoy seeing each other week after week and catching their breath after working hard. Kids play, parents laugh and music fills the air. What could be better?

We weren't able to attend much last year since Oscar was so young. But now that he is a toddler and can handle staying up a bit later, we are SO on it. He absolutely loves dancing to the music and we love catching up with friends. It really is a great way to ring in the weekend!

Andrea is a Raleigh mom of 1 human and 1 border collie, and wife to one exceptionally tall bass player. When they aren't partying to live music, you can find her at her blog Lil-Kid-Things , on Facebook, or Twitter.

I will be
attending with my whole family and I hope to see you there with yours. It will be a fabulous time to mix,
mingle and show your support for the people in our community who need
our help. In addition to all the warm and fuzzy feelings you will in no
doubt feel for just attending, I received an update about some fabulous
raffle prizes that you could end up going home with.

May 17, 2010

As my son grows, I find myself looking deeper, wondering how I can change to be a better
person in order to teach my son that there is good in the world.

How do you do that?

People can go their whole lives bitter, angry and full of hate. How to you even begin to teach your little wide eyed 3 year old boy
about how his place in the world can be a peaceful and kind place?

You start small.

You teach him to share his toys with his friends, you teach him to say please and thank you, you teach him patience, respect and hold
your breath when you see him interact with the world around him. Holding your breath in hopes that what you worked so hard to teach him is
somewhere deep down inside him.

I was so excited when I decided to take this lesson of kindness and the greater good one step further. I had planned to have a food
collection on behalf of the North Carolina Food Bank for his 3rd and my daughter’s 1st birthday in lieu of gifts. I told him all about how and why we were
doing this and tried to get him excited about going to the food bank to
make our donation.

He was excited and everything was set until the dark cloud hit our family and I had to cancel their birthday party. I was so sad that our excitement came to a screeching halt, but glad
that I had started to plant the seed of awareness in my little man.

Then the email came.

The North Carolina Food Bank contacted me asking me if I would like to be a Media Sponsor for an event they were having to raise awareness
about their facility and hunger in North Carolina. I immediately said
yes and was so excited to be a part of something bigger than myself
again.

The kid’s Summer Stock is an event to raise awareness about
hungry kids who fall short during the school summer breaks. Kids that
normally rely on two hot meals per day provided by their school’s lunch
program are left on their own. Once the school year ends these kids fall through the cracks and don’t get remembered until the school session
resumes in the fall.

Please take the time to come and celebrate the gift of giving
at the North Carolina Food Bank Warehouse in Raleigh. Show your
support by engaging with your local community and donating what you can
personally, monetarily and via canned goods.

I will be there with my kids and my husband, so feel free to
tap me on the shoulder and say hello!

April 28, 2010

Take my kids for instance. My son loves to only wear his underwear around the house. Plus, when he goes over to other people's houses he obsessively takes off his shoes (thanks to me being obsessed with it as well), but then proceeds to take off his jacket AND his pants. He does this like it is second nature to him and a totally socially acceptable thing to do. When you ask him why he does this, he looks at you like you are speaking a foreign language or something. More like he is thinking, "Why aren't YOU doing it?"

My daughter thinks anything and everything is a telephone. (Maybe I talk on the phone too much!) She will pick up any inanimate object and hold it to her ear and say "Bye-Bye" over and over and over again. When you talk to her and hand her an actual telephone, she looks at you with such a scowl that you would think you had just taken away her best friend.

However, one of the weirdest things I have seen in my house was the day I walked into the family room to find my son on the floor, with no pants on, licking his feet?

"Why are you licking your feet?" I asked him nervous to hear the answer.

"I have something on my feet."

"What is it?"

"Doggy hair."

YUCK!

I was grossed out and intervened immediately but was laughing while I helped him.

I love that kids are silly, wear their emotions on their sleeve, are just - THEMSELVES.

They are themselves and make no apologies for it. I love that and that is a quality I admire.

Last night I had my friends over for pizza and playtime, but the best part about it was we put on some dance music and watch the boys boogie down to their hearts content. They had no inhibitions and just wiggled however they wanted to and loved every minute of it.

I love that kids are weird. I will be sad the day they conform and turn all normal on us.

Normal is boring, I like weird.

When Sue isn't laughing about how weird her kids are, you can find her blogging at Motherhood and Me.

April 03, 2010

I'm going to share my opinion today. Something I don't often do but today I'm going there. I'm going there because I am tired of being marginalized. And I am SICK and tired of being boxed in and grouped in with stereotypical caricatures. I think that any number of people on any given day feels the way I feel, depending on the issue. But today is my day. And in the interest of full-disclosure, I am white. I am female. I am not by American standards wealthy, but I am in the wealthiest 10% of people in the world.

You may or may not know about a local decision that was made in our county. The Wake County School Board has recently decided to end diversity-based busing in favor of community schools. I am neither for OR against this decision. But if I had to lean, I would lean toward FOR. I am telling you this because I am really, SO sick and tired of being marginalized as a Segregationist or an Elitist as many are calling those who support this decision.

If you are against this decision, and that is what you REALLY believe about the opposing opinion, then I can't see how anyone will ever bring change to the table. The Wake County School System as it stands needs serious help. It NEEDS CHANGE. Now, perhaps this isn't the best way, but I think the fact that things are happening is a step in the right direction.

Right now, my home is in a low-income neighborhood. We chose this neighborhood because it was affordable and diverse. The school we are zoned for however, is in an affluent neighborhood and only about 15 minutes away. The school right around the corner will be one of the worst (in terms of poverty) in Wake County with the new plan. So you might ask, WHY then am I for the end to busing? And I would answer, because this is my community. I want to love it. I live here and if there is a part that is hurting, I want to help fix it. Not shrug my shoulders and send my child to a school in a better neighborhood.

Many children would not be zoned for a school 15 minutes away but an hour or more. And that is NOT acceptable! Children that are riding a bus for several hours each day are NOT reaping the benefits of a better education. They likely will not be able to participate in extra-curricular activities because of the bus schedules, will have LESS time to do homework and will be getting up earlier while potentially getting less sleep than if they were able to attend a community school. The fact that they would be in a school with many different color faces and different sized pocketbooks does not seem like a good enough trade off to me.

I concede that putting an end to busing is not the end all-be all solution to the problem. But it does not a racist make. As concerned parents, we need to let our actions be the guide to what we want for our children. Are we better people by living in gated communities and opening the doors of our schools to the less fortunate while still enjoying our affluence? Or maybe, just maybe, could we disperse into the communities of need and get involved? Could we meet people and love our neighbors instead of shipping them off to be someone else's problem? If my son ends up in our neighborhood school when all is said and done, I want to love that school. Get involved and do my part. It is after all, my responsibility as his mother. If there are communities that need more help, then by all means LET US HELP THEM. To redirect the problem does not solve the brokenness. That requires personal, hands on involvement. And if you ask me, THAT is the conversation we should be having.

This is a cross-post from Andrea's blog, Lil-Kid-Things. Andrea has lived in Raleigh for 12 years and is looking at Local Politics with a new set of eyes since having a son 14 months ago. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.